Processors Linux Reviews & Articles

There have been 421 Linux hardware reviews and benchmark articles on Phoronix for processors. Separately, check out our news section for related product news.

AMD Ryzen 5 3600XT / Ryzen 7 3800XT / Ryzen 9 3900XT Linux Performance In 130+ Benchmarks
AMD Ryzen 5 3600XT / Ryzen 7 3800XT / Ryzen 9 3900XT Linux Performance In 130+ Benchmarks

After the AMD Ryzen 3000XT series was announced last month, these new higher-clocked Zen 2 desktop processors are shipping today. Here are 130+ benchmarks on each of the Ryzen 5 3600XT, Ryzen 7 3800XT, and Ryzen 9 3900XT parts compared to various Intel and AMD CPUs. Tests under Ubuntu Linux and also complemented by performance-per-Watt / power and performance-per-dollar data points.

7 July 2020 - 23 Comments
Ampere Announces Altra Max 128-Core Server Processor
Ampere Announces Altra Max 128-Core Server Processor

Back in March Ampere Computing detailed their next-gen Altra ARM-based server CPU with up to 80 cores per socket. Today the company is revealing more roadmap details including the forthcoming Altra Max that offers 128 cores per socket.

23 June 2020 - 19 Comments
AMD Ryzen 3 3300X vs. Intel Core i3 10100 In 350+ Benchmarks
AMD Ryzen 3 3300X vs. Intel Core i3 10100 In 350+ Benchmarks

Following our Intel Core i5 10600K and Core i9 10900K Linux benchmarks, here is a look at the lowest-end Core "Comet Lake" processor in the form of the Core i3 10100. Thanks to the increased pressure from AMD Ryzen, Intel now has a 4 core / 8 thread Core i3 processor at less than $150 USD. Here is a head-to-head matchup of the AMD Ryzen 3 3300X and Intel Core i3 10100 processors in more than 350 benchmarks while also looking at the power and thermal efficiency in this largest comparison to date for these low-end desktop CPUs.

12 June 2020 - 43 Comments
Benchmarks Of 2nd Gen AMD EPYC On Amazon EC2 Against Intel Xeon, Graviton2
Benchmarks Of 2nd Gen AMD EPYC On Amazon EC2 Against Intel Xeon, Graviton2

Today AMD and Amazon announced the general availability of 2nd Gen AMD EPYC "Rome" processors available via the Elastic Compute Cloud. AMD EPYC "Rome" on EC2 with the new "C5a" instance types offer very competitive performance against the latest Intel Xeon instance types, Amazon's own Graviton2 Arm-based instances, and a big upgrade compared to the first-generation EPYC processors in the cloud.

4 June 2020 - 21 Comments
AMD Ryzen 5 4500U Benchmarks - Previously Unimaginable Performance For Sub-$600 Laptops
AMD Ryzen 5 4500U Benchmarks - Previously Unimaginable Performance For Sub-$600 Laptops

A few weeks back I began delivering Ryzen 7 4700U Linux laptop benchmarks for this 8-core Zen 2 mobile CPU with Vega graphics. The results have been very good and the support is in good shape with the latest Linux kernel, but many have been wondering about the Ryzen 5 4500U. The Ryzen 5 4500U is beginning to appear in several $500~600 USD laptops and offers six cores. Here are benchmarks and initial impressions with the Lenovo Flex 5 that features a 14-inch 1080p display, 16GB dual channel memory, 256GB SSD, and the Ryzen 5 4500U all for just $599!

1 June 2020 - 60 Comments
Ryzen 9 3900X/3950X vs. Core i9 10900K In 380+ Benchmarks
Ryzen 9 3900X/3950X vs. Core i9 10900K In 380+ Benchmarks

Following our initial Core i5 10600K and Core i9 10900K Linux benchmarks last week, here is a much larger comparison I have been working on since then in looking specifically at the Ryzen 9 3900X and 3950X against the Core i9 10900K. It's the largest to date with nearly 400 benchmarks being tested, most of them real-world test cases.

28 May 2020 - 71 Comments
100+ Benchmarks Of Amazon's Graviton2 64-Core CPU Against AMD's EPYC 7742
100+ Benchmarks Of Amazon's Graviton2 64-Core CPU Against AMD's EPYC 7742

Last week Amazon AWS promoted their Graviton2 instances to general availability status with a variety of different sized EC2 instances as well as a bare metal instance for tapping the full potential of their new SoC that features 64 Arm Neoverse N1 cores. Last week we ran through many benchmarks looking at Graviton2 on EC2 and bare metal performance while here is a follow-up article with more benchmarks and looking at how the sixty-four core Arm Graviton2 compares to AMD's EPYC 7742 64-core CPU with and without SMT.

22 May 2020 - 50 Comments
Intel Core i5 10600K + Core i9 10900K
Intel Core i5 10600K + Core i9 10900K

Intel announced at the end of April the 10th Gen Core "Comet Lake" S-Series CPUs with the Core i9 10900K being their new top-end processor with a 10 core / 20 thread processor that can clock up to 5.3GHz. The Comet Lake S-Series desktop CPUs are now shipping and this morning the embargo lifts in being able to publish the benchmarks. Here is how the Intel Core i5 10500K and Core i9 10900K processors are performing on Linux from Steam on Linux gaming to various interesting real-world workloads.

20 May 2020 - 60 Comments
Benchmarking Amazon's Graviton2 Performance With 64 Neoverse N1 Cores Against Intel Xeon, AMD EPYC

This week Amazon announced the general availability of their EC2 "M6g" instances powered by their second-generation Graviton processors. Amazon is offering a variety of M6g instances with the Graviton2 CPU, including a bare metal instance. In this article are many benchmarks looking at the various Amazon EC2 M6g instances compared to other EC2 Intel Xeon and AMD EPYC instances as well as looking at the M6g Graviton2 metal performance up against various Intel/AMD CPUs in our lab.

15 May 2020 - 23 Comments
Initial Benchmarks Of The AMD EPYC 7F32 Performance On Ubuntu 20.04 LTS
Initial Benchmarks Of The AMD EPYC 7F32 Performance On Ubuntu 20.04 LTS

Announced back on 14 April were AMD's newest members of the EPYC 7002 "Rome" family, the 7Fx2 high frequency processors. Back on launch day we posted the AMD EPYC 7F52 Linux benchmarks for that 16-core/32-thread CPU with a staggering 256MB cache and clocking up to 3.9GHz. In this article today are our initial benchmarks of the EPYC 7F32 as the 8-core/16-thread processor yielding a 128MB L3 cache and clock speeds up to 3.9GHz.

27 April 2020 - 7 Comments
AMD EPYC 7F52 Linux Performance - AMD 7FX2 CPUs Further Increasing The Fight Against Intel Xeon
AMD EPYC 7F52 Linux Performance - AMD 7FX2 CPUs Further Increasing The Fight Against Intel Xeon

AMD today is announcing three new EPYC 7002 "Rome" SKUs in the form of the 7F32, 7F52, and 7F72 processors. The AMD 7F52 processors we have been recently testing and offers some impressive performance potential as while it's a 16-core / 32-thread part it offers an impressive 256MB L3 cache (16MB per core). Here are our initial Linux benchmarks of the AMD EPYC 7F52 in 1P and 2P configurations up against various AMD EPYC and Intel Xeon processors.

14 April 2020 - 16 Comments
Intel Xeon Gold 5220R + Xeon Gold 6226R Linux Performance
Intel Xeon Gold 5220R + Xeon Gold 6226R Linux Performance

At the end of February Intel launched the Xeon Scalable "Cascade Lake Refresh" processors with a number of more aggressively priced SKUs with different core counts and clock speeds compared to the original Cascade Lake CPUs launched last year. Intel recently sent over the Xeon Gold 5220R and Xeon Gold 6226R processors and we've begun our Linux benchmarks of them. In this article is our initial look at their performance using a near-final build of Ubuntu 20.04 and seeing how the performance stacks up in raw performance and performance-per-dollar against the AMD EPYC competition.

10 April 2020 - 21 Comments
A Curious Look At Eight Core Server CPU Performance From Intel Xeon Haswell To AMD EPYC Rome
A Curious Look At Eight Core Server CPU Performance From Intel Xeon Haswell To AMD EPYC Rome

When it comes to the AMD EPYC 7002 "Rome" processors we have looked at the various higher-end SKUs since their launch last August up to and including the EPYC 7742 with its 64 cores / 128 threads per socket. But for those wondering about the EPYC 7002 series performance at the bottom end of the spectrum, here are some fun benchmarks of the EPYC 7232P and EPYC 7262 on the near-final Ubuntu 20.04 LTS state compared to various vintages of Intel Xeon CPUs -- most notably, a curiosity driven look at the 8 core / 16 thread Intel Haswell Xeon performance.

27 March 2020 - 10 Comments
Ampere Altra Announced - Offering Up To 80 Cores Per Socket
Ampere Altra Announced - Offering Up To 80 Cores Per Socket

Ampere Computing, the ARM server start-up founded by former Intel president Renee James and staffed by many former Intel folks, is today announcing Altra as their next-generation server processor. Ampere started off with the assets of AppliedMicro's X-Gene ARMv8 IP and that turned into the Ampere's eMAG as a decent entrant into the field two years ago. But now with more resources and engineering talent under their belt, they are now preparing to ship the Ampere Altra as up to 80 cores per socket and based on Arm's latest Neoverse N1.

3 March 2020 - 33 Comments
Windows vs. Linux Scaling Performance From 16 To 128 Threads With AMD Ryzen Threadripper 3990X
Windows vs. Linux Scaling Performance From 16 To 128 Threads With AMD Ryzen Threadripper 3990X

As has been known for a while now, AMD Ryzen Threadripper processors really show their true potential on Linux with often significant increases to the performance thanks to the kernel's better scalability compared to Microsoft Windows. While Microsoft has made some improvements in this area over the past year, with the AMD Ryzen Threadripper 3990X 64-core / 128-thread HEDT processor it really shines on Linux. In this article are benchmarks of Windows 10 Professional and Windows 10 Enterprise against Linux on the Threadripper 3990X when going from 16 cores to 128 threads for seeing how the three operating systems are scaling.

14 February 2020 - 23 Comments
Ubuntu 20.04 + Linux 5.5: Fresh Benchmarks Of AMD EPYC Rome vs. Intel Xeon Cascade Lake
Ubuntu 20.04 + Linux 5.5: Fresh Benchmarks Of AMD EPYC Rome vs. Intel Xeon Cascade Lake

Here are some fresh numbers looking at the current performance of various AMD EPYC 7002 "Rome" processors up against Intel Xeon Cascade Lake processors when using an Ubuntu 20.04 LTS development snapshot and also upgrading to Linux 5.5 as the latest stable kernel. Beyond raw performance, power efficiency and performance-per-dollar for these different server CPUs are being compared as well for these sub-$5000 processors.

13 February 2020 - 17 Comments
AMD Ryzen Threadripper 3990X Offers Incredible Linux Performance
AMD Ryzen Threadripper 3990X Offers Incredible Linux Performance

If you are looking for the absolute best single-socket workstation performance for Linux, there has already been the Threadripper 3970X that easily outperforms the likes of the Core i9 10980XE as Intel's top-end HEDT product, but now the Threadripper 3990X is shipping. The Threadripper 3990X is AMD's first 64-core / 128-thread desktop/workstation processor and will love your multi-threaded workloads from code compilation to content creation. As shown in our benchmarks, this single CPU is indeed faster than $20k worth of Intel Xeon Platinum CPUs.

7 February 2020 - 71 Comments
AMD Athlon 3000G Linux Performance Benchmarks - The New $50 Processor
AMD Athlon 3000G Linux Performance Benchmarks - The New $50 Processor

Announced last month was the Athlon 3000G as a ~$49 processor based on Zen and featuring two cores / four threads and Vega 3 graphics. This 35 Watt TDP processor has finally begun appearing at more Internet retailers in stock last week and I was able to pick up one of these budget CPUs for $55 USD. Here are benchmarks of the Athlon 3000G on Ubuntu Linux compared to other low-end and older processors.

24 December 2019 - 44 Comments
An Extensive Look At The AMD Naples vs. Rome Power Efficiency / Performance-Per-Watt
An Extensive Look At The AMD Naples vs. Rome Power Efficiency / Performance-Per-Watt

Since the AMD EPYC 7002 "Rome" series launch in August we have continue to be captivated by the raw performance of AMD's Zen 2 server processors across many different workloads as covered now in countless articles. The performance-per-dollar / TCO is also extremely competitive against Intel's Xeon Scalable line-up, but how is the power efficiency of these 7nm EPYC processors? We waited to deliver those numbers until having a retail Rome board for carrying out those tests and now after that and then several weeks of benchmarking, here is an extensive exploration of the AMD EPYC 7002 series power efficiency as well as a look at the peak clock frequencies being achieved in various workloads to also provide some performance-per-clock metrics compared to Naples.

5 December 2019 - 10 Comments
300+ Benchmarks With AMD Threadripper 3960X vs. Intel Core i9 10980XE
300+ Benchmarks With AMD Threadripper 3960X vs. Intel Core i9 10980XE

Complementing our launch-day Intel Core i9 10980XE and AMD Ryzen Threadripper 3960X/3970X Linux benchmarks, here is much more data now that we've had the additional time for carrying out more tests... For your viewing pleasure this US holiday week are more than 330 benchmarks carried out on both the Core i9 10980XE and Threadripper 3960X in the same configuration while running Ubuntu Linux.

27 November 2019 - 20 Comments
AMD Ryzen Threadripper 3970X / 3960X Linux Benchmarks
AMD Ryzen Threadripper 3970X / 3960X Linux Benchmarks

After the embargo on the Intel Core i9 10980XE expired a few hours ago, now we are allowed to share the performance numbers on the new AMD Ryzen Threadripper 3960X and 3970X processors. These new Zen 2 HEDT CPUs pack a real performance punch, but do come in as more expensive than the i9-10980XE and there is one boot-stopping Linux bug to mention with a workaround... But besides that lone Linux support caveat, the Threadripper 3960X and Threadripper 3970X absolutely dominate in performance.

25 November 2019 - 34 Comments
Intel Core i9 10980XE Linux Performance Benchmarks
Intel Core i9 10980XE Linux Performance Benchmarks

Intel today is rolling out the Core i9 10980XE as their new Cascade Lake X-Series processor that features 18 cores / 36 threads with a maximum turbo frequency of 4.6GHz and TBM 3.0 frequency of 4.8GHz. Following a last minute change, Intel moved up the embargo lift time of the Core i9 10980XE so here are the results we can share with you right now.

25 November 2019 - 26 Comments
Intel Haswell To Ice Lake Laptop Performance Benchmarks On Ubuntu 19.10
Intel Haswell To Ice Lake Laptop Performance Benchmarks On Ubuntu 19.10

With the many Intel Ice Lake Linux benchmarks we began publishing over the past month since picking up a Dell XPS with Core i7-1065G7, there have been many benchmarks compared to the likes of the Core i7 Whiskey Lake and Kaby Lake processors. For those curious how the performance stacks up going further back, here are some Ubuntu 19.10 laptop benchmarks putting it up against the likes of Core i7 Haswell and Broadwell processors.

19 November 2019 - 11 Comments

421 processors articles published on Phoronix.